Vikings to TCF Bank Stadium: A fluid situation

Let's make one thing very clear here: The Vikings are working diligently to make sure Monday night's game against the Bears can be played at TCF Bank Stadium.

NFL executives are in town today to make sure this thing can happen -- these are the same guys in charge of getting Super Bowl sites ready -- and Vikings officials are spending countless hours trying to pull this thing off.

However, all that being said we continue to wait for the site of this game to be made official. I'm not trying to alarm anybody but this is not a situation where the lights can be turned on and the building will be ready to go. There are a myriad of issues that must be taken care of to pull this off.

Kevin Seifert, my former colleague and now ESPN's ace NFC North blogger, has put together an interesting post on the situation. One of the best points is that there aren't heating coils in the Field Turf at TCF Bank Stadium, making player safety an issue. The plan would be to bring in temporary heating for the facility but there is no way the entire field could be kept warm, especially during a night game.

Both Soldier Field and Lambeau Field, for instance, are heated from below. Heck, Target Field has heating coils.

One would think that the NFL Players Association would have some sort of say given that its members are the ones who would be playing in these conditions.

This is just one of the hurdles the Vikings and the NFL are working to clear before putting out a final press release saying this game will be played on the University of Minnesota campus.

UPDATE: The weekly release put out by the Vikings said the site of this game is "to be determined."